Tag: Alan Turing

Screenwriter Graham Moore revealed a surprising fact about himself during his Oscar acceptance speech on Sunday night, paid tribute to computer science pioneer Alan Turing and offered encouragement to “that kid out there who feels like she’s weird or she’s different.”

One of the world’s earliest computer geniuses, a British man whose work helped save humanity from fascism, was persecuted to death by the homophobic authorities of his era. This Christmas Eve, thanks to popular pressure and the authority of Queen Elizabeth II, justice to his memory has been served in the form of a royal pardon.

Alan Turing, the British computer scientist who helped crack the Nazi Enigma code and invented “one of the world’s first stored-program computers,” was sentenced to chemical castration more than 60 years ago on charges of “gross indecency.” Fifty-nine years after his death, he has received a posthumous royal pardon.

Aaron Swartz, the Internet freedom advocate who committed suicide in mid-January, was an intern in Florida Congressman Alan Grayson’s office after the onset of the economic crisis. Grayson recently paid tribute to Swartz at a memorial service in Washington, D.C.